Authorities ID Thibodaux High School student accused of threats

Keith Usea, 17, of Chackbay, is charged with terrorizing and simple assault.

Author:
Bridget Mire, Houmatoday.com

Published:
5:44 AM CST February 28, 2018

Updated:
5:44 AM CST February 28, 2018

Authorities have identified a Thibodaux High School student they say made a list of students he planned to kill with a shotgun.

Keith Usea, 17, of Chackbay, is charged with terrorizing and simple assault. He remained in the Lafourche Parish jail today on a $1 million bond.

A school administrator told a resource officer Feb. 19 that students had reported Usea having a “kill list,” Lafourche sheriff’s Lt. Brennan Matherne said. Usea also allegedly told students he would kill them.

Matherne said Usea told detectives he’d created the list sometime during the previous school year and disposed of it but that he remembered the names. Detectives later learned another male 17-year-old student had allegedly agreed to help Usea carry out the plan.

The Sheriff’s Office had withheld Usea’s identity because he was undergoing a mental health evaluation and had not yet been booked. The other suspect has not been identified for the same reason, but he also faces a terrorizing charge.

Lafourche schools Superintendent Jo Ann Matthews said both students have been suspended pending expulsion hearings.

Twelve students were accused last week of making threats or other remarks that put authorities on alert in Lafourche, Terrebonne and Assumption parishes. Many comments were related to guns.

The incidents followed a Feb. 14 rampage that left 17 people dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Matherne said the alleged plot at Thibodaux High was contrived before the Florida shooting but that it wasn’t clear what inspired the other threats.